/jr  ^y 


1 


Eliiijf-^' 


mi 


iM^iiri- 


id:l!,;'^|i!::i.M:ii- 


n 


^ 


!•     LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


I 


IRffinl' 


St.  Gaddens'  Statue  of  Lincoln,  in  Lincoln  Park,  Chicago. 

FronlisDiece. 


Abraham    Lincoln: 
JLlis    otory 


BY 

SAMUEL  SCOVILLE,  Jr. 

AUTHOR   OF    "brave   DEEDS  OF   UNION   SOLDIERS,"  ETC. 


PHILADELPHIA 

AMERICAN  SUNDAY-SCHOOL  UNION 
1816  Chestnut  Street 


Copyright,  1918,  by  the 
American  Sunday-School  Union 


All  righta  reserved 


To  My  Wife 
KATHARms  Trumbull  Scoville 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 


The  author  takes  this  opportunity  of  ex- 
pressing his  obhgation  to  Dr.  Taicott  WiUiams, 
head  of  the  Department  of  Joiunahsm  of 
Columbia  University,  for  access  to  his  scrap- 
book  of  Lincolniana,  covering  a  period  of 
many  years.  For  the  facts  and  in  some  cases 
for  the  phrasing  of  parts  of  this  sketch  the 
author  is  indebted  to  the  host  of  unknown 
writers  included  in  Dr.  Williams'  collection. 

The  author  has  also  consulted  and  made  use 
of  the  following  works:  Abraham  Lincoln:  A 
History,  by  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay; 
The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Ida  M.  Tar- 
bell;  Abraham  Lincoln — The  Boy  and  the  Man, 
by  James  Morgan;  Abraham  Lincoln  the  Chris- 
tian, by  Rev.  William  J.  Johnson;  Lincoln  the 
Laivyer,  by  Frederick  T.  Hill;  Life  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  by  J.  G.  Holland;  and  The  Complete 
Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  edited  by  John 
G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay.  Wherever  pos- 
sible the  writer  has  allowed  Lincoln  to  speak 
for  himself. 

Samuel  Scoville,  Jr. 

Philadelphia,  March,  1918. 


FOREWORD 


More  than  haK  a  century  ago  the  feet  of 
this  nation  had  slipped  to  the  very  brink  of 
the  pit  and  were  scorched  with  fire.  Then  came 
the  Man.  Still  his  words  ring  down  the  years 
a  message  to  us  who  are  today  giving  of  our 
best  for  the  freedom  of  the  world : 

"This  conflict  will  settle  the  question,  at 
least  for  centuries  to  come,  whether  man  is 
capable  of  governing  himseK,  and  consequently 
is  of  greater  importance  to  the  free  than  to 
the  slaves." 


"We  shall  nobly  save  or  meanly  lose  the 
last,  best  hope  of  earth." 


"Government  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth." 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Boy 13 

II.  The  Man 21 

III.  The  Lawyer 33 


IV.  The  Speaker 45 


V.  The  Statesman 54 

VI.  The  Christian 65 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


St.  Galtdens'  Statue  of  Lincoln Frontispiece. 

FACING  PAGE 

Birthplace  and  White  House 16 

Lincoln  in  Early  Manhood 38 

Barnard's  Statue  of  Lincoln 46 

Lincoln  and  McClellan  at  Antietam 58 

Lincoln  and  His  Son  "Tad" 66 


11 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN: 
HIS  STORY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  BOY 

In  every  century  are  born  men  whose  lives 
bring  messages  of  help  and  hope  tx)  those  who 
come  Eifter.  Such  an  one  was  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. The  year  of  his  birth,  1809,  was  a  hon- 
year.  Charles  Darwin  was  born  the  same  day; 
Mendelssohn,  Edgar  Allen  Poe,  Ohver  Wendell 
Holmes,  Alfred  Tennyson,  and  WilKam  Ewart 
Gladstone  in  the  same  year.  Few  boys  of  today 
start  hfe  so  handicapped  by  hardships  or  with 
fewer  opportunities.  Lincoln  knew  little  about 
his  ancestors.  In  later  Ufe  he  said  that  he  was 
more  concerned  to  know  what  his  grandfather's 
grandson  would  be  than  who  his  grandfather 
had  been. 

One  of  his  grandfathers  was  named  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  went  as  a  pioneer  to  Kentucky — 
then  the  ''Dark  and  Bloody  Ground"  claimed 
and  guarded  by  fierce  Indian  tribes.  There, 
near  where  the  city  of  Louisville  now  stands, 
he  cleared  a  field  in  the  forest,  not  far  from  a 
stockade  erected  by  other  settlers,  and  built 
a  cabin.    A  schoolmaster  of  that  time  remem- 

13 


14        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  :  HIS   STORY 

bers  boarding  in  a  similar  cabin,  which  had  but 
one  room  sixteen  feet  square,  where  hved  a 
father,  mother,  ten  children,  three  dogs,  and 
two  cats.  It  was  so  cold  at  night  that  he  slept 
on  his  shoes  in  order  to  prevent  them  from 
freezing  too  stiff  to  be  worn  the  next  day. 

One  morning  in  the  year  1784  this  first 
Abraham  Lincoln  started  with  his  three  sons, 
Mordecai,  Josiah,  and  Thomas,  to  work  at  a 
little  clearing  near  the  cabin.  Suddenly  from 
a  near-by  thicket  sounded  the  crack  of  a  rifle, 
and  this  first  Kentucky  Lincoln  fell  back  dead. 
Josiah  ran  to  the  stockade  for  help.  Mordecai 
dashed  back  to  the  cabin  and  took  down  his 
father's  rifle  just  as  an  Indian,  in  full  war  paint, 
reached  Thomas,  a  httle  boy  of  six,  who  had 
stayed  by  his  father's  body.  It  was  necessary 
to  shoot  quick  and  straight  to  save  his  brother's 
life.  Aiming  through  a  loophole  at  a  white 
string  of  wampum  on  the  Indian's  breast, 
Mordecai  dropped  him  dead  while  Thomas 
escaped  into  the  cabin.  From  there  Mordecai 
fought  off  the  other  Indians  until  help  came 
from  the  stockade. 

The  sight  of  his  father's  death  turned  this 
oldest  boy  Mordecai  into  an  Indian-hunter, 
and  he  spent  his  life  in  stalking  and  kilHng 
Indians  wherever  he  could  find  them.  Thomas, 
the  father  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  grew  up  a 


THE  BOY  15 

wandering  laboring  boy,  with  just  enough 
education  to  write  his  name.  Drifting  from 
one  job  to  another  he  became  a  carpenter  and 
married  Nancy  Hanks,  the  niece  of  the  man  in 
whose  shop  he  worked.  The  young  couple 
went  to  housekeeping  in  a  log  cabin  which  had 
one  room,  one  door,  and  one  window,  and  was 
furnished  with  a  spinning-wheel,  a  loom,  and 
a   feather   bed. 

There,  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky,  on 
February  12,  1809,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born, 
and  there  he  hved  until  he  was  seven  years  old. 
Lincoln's  only  playmate  was  his  sister,  and  his 
playground  the  lonely  forest.  With  this  sister 
he  went  to  school  now  and  then  under  wander- 
ing school-teachers,  who  held  school  in  a  de- 
serted cabin  made  of  round  logs  with  a  dirt 
floor  and  small  holes  for  windows  covered  with 
greased  paper.    There  he  learned  his  alphabet. 

The  War  of  1812  was  being  fought  at  this 
time.  "I  had  been  fishing  one  day,"  he  once 
told  a  friend  in  speaking  about  these  times, 
"and  had  caught  a  little  fish,  which  I  was  tak- 
ing home.  I  met  a  soldier  in  the  road  and  hav- 
ing been  told  at  home  that  we  must  be  good  to 
the  soldiers,  I  gave  him  my  fish." 

In  April,  1816,  Thomas  Lincoln  sold  his 
farm  for  four  hundred  gallons  of  whiskey  and 
twenty  dollars,  built  a  raft,  and  started  down 


16        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

the  Ohio  River  to  find  a  new  home  in  Indiana. 
On  the  way  the  raft  capsized,  but  he  saved  his 
tools  and  most  of  the  whiskey.  On  the  Indiana 
shore  he  chose  some  land  for  his  new  farm  and 
then  went  back  for  his  family.  The  last  thing 
that  the  little  boy  remembers  of  his  Kentucky 
home  was  that  his  mother  took  him  and  his 
sister  to  say  good-bye  to  the  little  brother  whom 
they  were  leaving  behind  in  an  unmarked 
grave  in  the  wilderness. 

On  two  borrowed  horses,  with  some  bedding 
and  a  few  pans  and  kettles,  the  Lincoln  family 
cut  their  way  through  the  forest  for  eighteen 
miles  to  Little  Pigeon  Creek.  There  Thomas 
Lincoln  hmriedly  built  a  shed  out  of  saphngs 
entirely  open  on  one  side,  and  in  this  the  family 
lived  a  whole  year  while  he  cleared  a  cornpatch 
and  built  a  rough  cabin. 

M  through  the  freezing  winter  storms  they 
huddled  together  in  this  rude  camp.  Finally 
the  new  log  cabin  was  built  and  the  family 
moved  in.  One  can  gain  an  idea  of  how  hur- 
riedly and  roughJy  it  was  put  together  from  a 
memorandum  made  by  Abraham  Lmcoln  in 
later  years:  "A  few  days  after  the  completion 
of  his  eighth  year,"  he  wrote,  "in  the  absence  of 
his  father,  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys  approached 
the  new  log  cabin,  and  Abraham,  w^th  a  new 
rifle  gun,  standing  inside,  shot  through  a  crack 


Lincoln's  Birthplace,  near  HoDGEN^^LI.E,  Kt. 


Thk  White  House  as  Lincoln  Entered  It. 
From  photograph  taken  in  1861. 


THE  BOY  17 

and  killed  one  of  them.  He  has  never  since 
pulled  trigger  on  any  larger  game." 

The  cabin  had  no  window  other  than  the 
large  cracks  which  he  mentions,  nor  any  door 
to  shut  out  the  sleet  and  snow  which  drifted 
in  through  the  doorway.  The  bare  earth  which 
served  for  a  floor  turned  to  mud  during  the 
winter  thaws.  The  little  boy's  bed  was  a  heap 
of  loose  leaves  in  a  loft,  which  he  reached  by 
climbing  up  on  pegs  driven  into  the  wall.  Some- 
times the  family  had  nothing  to  eat  but  roast 
potatoes,  and  a  neighbor  remembers  that 
peeled,  sliced  raw  potatoes  were  passed  around 
for  dessert.  Sometimes  on  cold  days  the  chil- 
dren would  carry  a  hot  roast  potato  with  them 
on  their  way  to  school  to  keep  their  hands 
warm.  "They  were  pretty  pinching  times," 
wrote  Abraham  Lincoln  in  after  years. 

In  1818,  when  Abraham  was  nine  years  old, 
a  mysterious  disease  nearly  wiped  out  the 
small  community  at  Little  Pigeon  Creek.  It 
was  called  the  "milk-sick"  and  attacked  cattle 
and  humans  alike.  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln  was 
stricken  down  with  it.  There  was  no  doctor 
within  thirty-five  miles,  and  under  the  swift 
fever  she  died  before  one  could  be  called.  Her 
last  message  to  her  boy,  as  she  lay  dying,  was 
to  be  good  to  his  father  and  sister,  and  to  love 
his  kin  and  worship  God.    She  was  buried  in  a 


18        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

rude  coffin  on  a  knoll  near  by,  with  no  prayer 
or  service  over  the  grave.  Months  later  the 
little  boy  learned  to  write,  and  his  first  letter, 
addressed  to  a  wandering  preacher,  brought 
the  latter  to  preach  a  funeral  sermon  over  the 
lonely,  snow-covered  grave. 

Before  the  next  winter  was  over,  the  father 
went  back  to  Kentucky  and  so  successfully 
courted  a  widow,  Sarah  Bush  Johnston,  that 
they  were  married  the  morning  after  he  called 
upon  her.  This  second  marriage  was  the  begin- 
ning of  a  better  fife  for  the  two  little  Lincoln 
children.  The  new  mother  had  so  much  prop- 
erty that  a  four-horse  team  was  needed  to 
bring  it  all  to  Little  Pigeon  Creek ;  and  for  the 
fii'st  time  in  his  life  Abraham  Lincoln  slept  on  a 
feather  bed,  with  a  pillow  and  blankets  and 
even  a  quilt.  From  her,  too,  he  received  his 
first  woolen  shirt,  which  took  the  place  of  the 
deerskin  one  that  he  had  always  worn  before. 
The  shiftless  father  was  forced  to  make  a  door, 
lay  a  floor,  and  cut  out  a  window,  which  was 
covered  with  greased  paper  instead  of  glass. 

Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  was  an  honest,  energetic 
Christian  woman,  who  learned  to  love  Abra- 
ham quite  as  dearly  as  her  own  children.  He 
owed  much  to  her  love  and  care.  It  was  she 
who  persuaded  the  father  to  let  him  go  to 
school.    The  boy  would  walk  nine  miles  a  day 


THE  BOY  19 

and  do  his  studying  at  night  in  the  light  of  a 
fire  made  from  shavings,  while  his  figuring  was 
done  with  a  bit  of  charcoal  on  the  back  of  a 
wooden  shovel,  which  he  would  whittle  clean 
when  it  could  hold  no  more.  His  pen  was  the 
quill  of  a  turkey  buzzard,  and  his  ink  was  made 
from  the  juice  of  a  brier-root.  Altogether  he 
had  in  his  whole  life  less  than  a  year  of  school- 
ing, but  he  learned  to  read  and  spell  and  write 
and  cipher  to  the  rule  of  three. 

One  day  a  wagon  broke  down  in  the  road 
near  the  house,  and  a  woman  with  her  two 
daughters  stayed  with  the  Lincolns  over  night. 
She  had  some  books  and  told  the  children  some 
stories.  For  the  first  time  Abraham  discovered 
what  opportunity  and  happiness  books  can 
bring  to  those  who  learn  to  read  them.  From 
that  day  on  he  borrowed  and  read  every  book 
that  he  could  get  for  miles  around.  One  of  the 
earliest  writings  which  we  have  of  his  is  a  copy- 
book form  which  he  set  for  a  neighbor: 

Good  boys,  who  to  their  books  apply. 
Will  all  be  great  men  by  and  by. 

There  were  six  books  which  he  read  and  read 
and  reread.  These  books  were  the  Bible, 
JEsop's  Fables,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
Robinson  Crusoe,  A  History  of  the  United  States, 
and  Weems's  Life  of  Washington.     The  last- 


20        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

named  book  was  damaged  by  the  rain  which 
drove  in  one  night  through  the  cracks  in  the 
cabin,  and  Lincoln  had  to  pull  fodder  in  the 
owner's  cornfield  for  three  whole  days  in  order 
to  pay  for  it.  The  book  belonged  to  one  "Blue- 
Nose"  Crawford,  and  Lincoln  afterward  wrote 
a  poem  about  him,  making  fun  of  his  stinginess, 
— but  he  paid  for  the  book.  He  kept  on  borrow- 
ing and  reading  until,  as  he  later  said,  he  had 
jQnished  every  book  to  be  obtained  within  a 
radius  of  fifty  miles. 

There  are  not  many  records  left  of  his  boy- 
hood. Those  that  have  come  down  to  us  are 
all  kindly  ones.  Once  he  saved  the  life  of  the 
village  drunkard,  whom  he  found  freezing  by 
the  roadside,  cai'rying  liim  in  his  arms  to  the 
tavern  and  working  over  him  until  he  was  out 
of  danger.  Another  time,  it  was  remembered, 
he  rescued  a  mud  turtle  from  some  children 
who  were  putting  red-hot  coals  on  its  shell. 
The  words  of  his  stepmother  can  best  sum  up 
the  story  of  his  boyhood:  "I  can  say  that  Abe 
never  gave  me  a  cross  word  or  look,  and  never 
refused  to  do  anything  I  asked  him.  I  had  a 
son,  John,  who  was  raised  with  Abe.  Both 
were  good  boys,  but  I  must  say  that  Abe  was 
the  best  boy  I  ever  saw." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   MAN 

Lincoln's  staived  and  straitened  boyhood 
stretched  out  mto  a  manhood  that  seemed  to 
hold  Httle  but  poverty  and  toil.  As  he  grew 
large  enough  he  began  to  work  out  as  a 
farmhand  and  afterward  as  a  llatboatsman. 
Every  yard  of  the  brown  jeans  dyed  with  wal- 
nut juice  which  he  wore  was  earned  by  splitting 
rails.  A  day's  work  lasted  from  sunrise  to  sun- 
set and  brought  him  in  twenty-five  cents. 
Listen  to  the  story  of  Lincoln's  first  dollar: 

I  was  about  eighteen  years  of  age  and  belonged,  as 
you  know,  to  what  they  call  down  South  the  "scrubs." 
I  was  very  glad  to  have  the  chance  of  earning  something, 
and  supposed  each  of  the  men  would  give  me  a  couple 
of  bits.  I  sculled  them  out  to  the  steamer.  They  got 
on  board,  and  I  lifted  the  trunks  and  put  them  on  the 
deck.  The  steamer  was  about  to  put  on  steam  again, 
when  I  called  out,  "You  have  forgotten  to  pay  me." 
Each  of  them  took  from  his  pocket  a  silver  half-dollar 
and  threw  it  on  the  bottom  of  my  boat.  You  may  think 
it  was  a  very  little  thing,  and  in  these  days  it  seems  to 
me  like  a  trifle,  but  it  was  a  most  important  incident 
in  my  life.  I  could  scarcely  credit  that  I,  a  poor  boy, 
had  earned  a  dollar  in  less  than  a  day;  that  by  honest 
work  I  had  earned  a  dollar.  I  was  a  more  hopeful  and 
thoughtful  boy  from  that  time. 

It  was  on  a  trip  to  New  Orleans  on  a  flatboat 
with  John  Hanks  that  he  saw,  for  the  first  time, 
men  and  women  put  up  on  a  block  and  sold  as 

21 


22        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

slaves.  Lincoln  turned  to  Hanks  and  said, 
"John,  if  I  ever  get  a  chance  to  hit  this  thing, 
.     .     .     rU  hit  it  hard." 

In  1831  he  went  to  New  Salem,  on  the  San- 
gamon River,  twenty  miles  northwest  of 
Springfield.  The  town  consisted  of  only  fifteen 
houses  all  built  of  logs.  Lincoln  reached  there 
on  election  day  and  the  clerk  of  election  needed 
a  helper.  Seeing  Lincohi  hanging  around  the 
polls  he  asked  him  whether  he  could  write. 
"Well,"  said  Lincoln,  "I  can  make  a  few  rabbit 
tracks." 

He  got  the  job  and  afterward  was  hired  as 
a  clerk  in  the  village  store.  It  was  there  that 
he  laid  the  foundation  of  his  reputation  for 
absolute  honesty.  Finding  one  evening  that 
he  had  taken  six  cents  too  much  from  a  cus- 
tomer, he  walked  three  miles  that  night,  after 
the  store  was  closed,  to  return  the  money. 
Another  time,  in  weighing  out  half  a  pound  of 
tea,  he  made  a  mistake  of  four  ounces.  Dis- 
covering this  mistake  the  first  thing  in  the 
morning,  he  closed  the  store  until  he  could 
dehver  the  rest  of  the  tea. 

While  he  was  still  a  clerk  in  this  store  the 
Black  Hawk  Indian  War  broke  out.  There  was 
a  call  for  volunteers  and  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
elected  captain.  The  other  candidate  was  a 
man  named  Kirkpatrick,  who  had  once  hired 


THE  MAN  23 

Lincoln  and  cheated  him  out  of  two  dollars  in 
wages.  Lincoln  afterward  wrote  that  no  other 
success  in  life  ever  gave  him  so  much  satisfaction. 

He  did  not  make  a  great  record  as  a  military 
man.  In  after-life  he  used  to  tell  how  he  got  his 
men  through  a  gateway  into  a  field:  "I  could 
not  for  the  life  of  me  remember  the  right  word 
of  command  for  getting  my  company  endwise, 
so  that  it  could  get  through  the  gate;  so  when 
we  came  near  I  shouted,  'This  company  is 
dismissed  for  two  minutes,  when  it  will  fall  in 
again  on  the  other  side  of  the  gate.'  " 

Lincoln  did  not  win  much  glory  in  this 
campaign,  but  at  some  risk  to  himself  he  saved 
the  life  of  a  helpless  old  Indian  whom  his  men 
wished  to  kiU. 

When  he  came  back  to  New  Salem,  in  part- 
nership with  a  man  named  Berry  he  opened  a 
store,  giving  his  notes  in  payment  for  the  stock. 
Berry  ran  the  business  heavily  into  debt  and 
died.  Instead  of  going  through  bankruptcy 
Lincoln  sold  out,  shouldered  the  burden  for 
fifteen  years,  and  paid  off  every  doUar  of  the 
debt  with  interest. 

Later  on  he  became  the  postmaster  at  New 
Salem.  Most  of  the  letters  he  carried  around 
in  his  hat  and  delivered  to  his  neighbors  at 
their  cabins  on  his  way  to  work — one  of  the 
earliest  systems  on  record  of  rural  free-delivery. 


24        ABllAIIAM    LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

At  length  came  a  chance  to  secure  an  ap- 
pointment as  deputy  state  surveyor.  The  only 
difficulty  was  that  Lincoln  knew  absolutely 
nothing  about  surveying.  He  borrowed  a 
textbook  and,  with  the  help  of  a  schoolmaster 
friend,  worked  night  and  day  for  six  weeks. 
At  the  end  of  that  time,  pale  and  haggard  but 
a  master  of  surveying,  he  got  the  job. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  fell  in  love 
with  the  beautiful  Ann  Rutledge,  wiio  died  soon 
after  they  became  engaged.  "My  heart  is 
buried  there,"  he  said  to  a  friend  when  they 
once  passed  her  grave.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
Lincoln  was  a  changed  man  after  her  death  and 
that  her  loss  deepened  his  life.  This  thought 
has  been  nobly  plu"ased  by  Edgar  Lee  Masters 
in  the  epitaph  which  he  has  written  for  her 
almost  unmarked  grave: 

Ann  Rutledge 

Out  of  me,  unworthy  and  unknown. 

The  vibrations  of  deathless  music: 

"With  mahce  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all." 

Out  of  nie  the  forgiveness  of  millions  toward  millions, 

And  the  beneficent  face  of  a  nation 

Shining  with  justice  and  truth. 

I  am  Anne  Rutledge  who  sleep  beneath  these  weeds. 

Beloved  in  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 

Wedded  to  him,  not  through  union. 

But  through  separation. 

Bloom  forever,  O  Republic, 

From  the  dust  of  my  bosom! 

In  1834  Lincoln  was  elected  to  the  state 


THE  MAN  25 

legislature  and  went  to  Springfield  to  live. 
He  reached  that  town  on  a  borrowed  horse, 
with  all  of  his  possessions  in  a  couple  of  saddle- 
bags, and  accepted  the  offer  of  Joshua  Speed, 
a  storekeeper,  to  share  his  room  and  bed  until 
he  got  a  start.  Going  upstairs  Lincoln  set  his 
saddlebags  on  the  floor  and  coming  down  said 
beamingly,  "Well,  Speed,  I'm  moved." 

In  1842  Lincoln  married  Mary  Todd,  a 
spirited,  pretty  Kentucky  girl.  They  lived 
at  the  Globe  Tavern  at  four  dollars  a  week. 
He  wrote  to  a  friend  who  had  invited  him  to 
visit  in  Kentucky:  "I  am  so  poor,  and  make  so 
little  headway,  that  I  drop  back  in  a  month 
of  idleness  as  much  as  I  would  gain  in  a  year's 
sov/ing." 

Here  is  Lincoln's  own  account  of  his  appear- 
ance at  this  time:  "I  am  in  height  six  feet  four 
inches  nearly,  lean  in  flesh,  weighing  on  an 
average  of  a  hundred  and  eighty  pounds,  dark 
complexion,  with  coarse,  black  hair  and  gray 
eyes.    No  other  marks  or  brands  recollected." 

He  always  had  unusual  strength  and  en- 
durance. Once  he  picked  up  and  carried  a 
weight  of  six  hundred  pounds.  At  another 
time  he  shouldered  some  posts  which  several 
men  were  vainly  trying  to  lift  with  a  hoisting 
machine.  In  harness  he  was  able  to  lift  a  dead 
weight  of  half  a  ton  off  the  ground.    Moreover, 


26        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

he  was  able  to  use  this  strength  in  protecting 
himself  when  it  became  necessary.  At  New 
Salem,  when  forced  into  a  fight,  he  whipped 
Jack  Armstrong,  the  leader  of  the  Clary's 
Grove  gang,  and  then  with  his  back  to  the 
wall  held  his  own  against  the  rest  of  the  gang, 
all  of  whom  afterward  became  his  devoted 
friends  and  supporters 

Throughout  life  Lincoln  was  a  melancholy 
man.  He  thus  wrote  about  himself  in  1841  to 
his  friend  and  partner  Stuart:  "I  am  now  the 
most  miserable  man  living.  If  what  I  feel 
were  equally  distributed  to  the  whole  human 
family,  there  would  not  be  one  cheerful  face 
on  earth.  Whether  I  shall  ever  be  better,  I 
cannot  tell;  I  awfully  forebode  I  shall  not." 

He  fought  this  natural  despondency  with 
his  stories,  when  many  another  man  would 
have  given  in  to  it.  Of  this  use  of  stories 
Lincoln  said: 

I  am  not  a  story-teller.  Often  by  the  use  of  a  story 
I  can  illustrate  a  point,  or  take  the  sting  out  of  a  re- 
fusal to  grant  a  request.  Sometimes,  too,  the  telling 
of  a  good  story  or  the  Ustening  to  one  lightens  the 
load  of  sorrow  and  suffering  that  one  in  my  position 
has  to  bear;  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  I  am  a 
humorist  or  teU  stories  for  the  laugh  that  is  in  them. 

Most  of  his  stories  come  under  this,  his  own 
description  of  them,  as  when,  at  one  of  the 
receptions  given  by  him  when  President,  a 


THE   MAN  27 

Virginia  farmer  pushed  his  way  through  the 
crowd  and  told  him  that  some  Union  soldiers 
had  carried  off  his  hay.  "I  hope,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent," he  ended,  "that  you'll  see  that  I'm 
paid." 

Mr.  Lincoln's  only  reply  was  to  tell  him  the 
story  of  Jack  Chase,  the  river  captain.  Once 
when  he  was  piloting  a  steamer  through  the 
rapids  and  straining  every  nerve  and  muscle 
to  follow  the  narrow  channel,  a  boy  pulled  his 
coat-tail  and  shouted  in  his  ear  above  the  roar 
of  the  waters:  "Say,  Mr.  Captain,  I  wish 
you'd  stop  the  boat  a  minute.  I've  dropped 
my  apple  overboard." 

At  other  times  his  whimsical  droUery  and 
quaint  flashes  of  humor  were  efforts,  perhaps 
unconscious,  to  relieve  the  rooted  melancholy 
of  his  hfe.  "Why,  Mr.  President,  do  you  black 
your  own  boots.*^"  exclaimed  Charles  Sumner 
when  he  found  Mr.  Lincoln  so  engaged  at  the 
White  House.  "Whose  boots  did  you  think 
I  blacked  .^^"  responded  the  President. 

Another  time,  when  he  was  visiting  the 
Union  army,  a  young  officer  pushed  his  way 
through  the  crowd  and  complained  to  him  bit- 
terly that  Colonel  Sherman,  as  he  was  then, 
had  threatened  to  shoot  him. 

"Did  he  threaten  to  shoot  you.^"  exclaimed 
Lincoln. 


28        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  :  HIS  STORY 

"Yes,  shoot  me!"  the  officer  assured  him 
earnestly. 

Leaning  over  to  him  Lincoln  said  in  a  stage 
whisper,  "Well,  if  I  were  you  and  Sherman  had 
threatened  to  shoot  me,  I  wouldn't  trust  him 
for  a  moment — for  I  believe  he'd  do  it." 

Early  in  life  Lincoln  resolved  not  to  weigh 
himself  down  with  bad  habits.  He  led  a 
straight,  clean  hfe  morally.  What  he  said 
about  the  women  of  America  at  the  end  of 
the  Civil  War  can  be  quoted  as  his  attitude 
toward  women  during  his  entire  life: 

"If  all  that  has  been  said  by  orators  and 
poets  since  the  creation  of  the  world  in  praise 
of  women  were  applied  to  the  women  of  Amer- 
ica, it  would  not  do  them  justice  for  their  con- 
duct during  this  war.  I  wiU  close  by  saying, 
'God  bless  the  women  of  America.'  " 

He  neither  drank  nor  smoked.  In  the  early 
forties  he  wrote  to  George  E.  Pickett,  after- 
ward a  Confederate  general: 

"I  have  just  told  the  folks  here  in  Spring- 
field, on  the  hundred-and-tenth  anniversary 
of  Washington's  birthday,  that  the  one  victory 
we  can  ever  call  complete  will  be  that  one 
which  proclaims  that  there  is  not  one  slave  nor 
one  drunkard  on  the  face  of  God's  green  earth. 
Recruit  for  this  victory!" 

The  picture  of  his  inner  life  is  a  harder  one 


THE  MAN  29 

to  draw  than  that  of  his  appearance  and  habits. 
There  were  two  men  in  Lincoln.  One  of  them 
was  the  Lincoln  known  to  all  his  townsfolk — 
the  plain,  honest,  shrewd,  kindly,  humorous 
man,  with  a  certain  native  dignity  which  kept 
them  from  calling  him  by  his  first  name.  "He 
was  folky  but  not  familiar,"  one  of  them  after- 
ward wrote.  The  other  man  was  the  dreamer, 
who  made  his  dreams  come  true;  the  mystic, 
who  dreamed  of  the  swift  ship  carrying  him  to 
a  dark  shore  before  the  battles  of  Antietam, 
Gettysburg,  Vicksburg,  and  the  night  before 
his  death;  the  thinker,  who  walked  the  streets 
wrapped  in  solitude,  not  seeing  his  best  friends, 
but  looking  beyond  the  horizon  and  pondering 
in  his  own  mind  through  many  a  lonely  night 
the  great  problem  of  slavery.  It  was  this 
Lincoln  whom  few  even  of  his  best  friends 
knew.  To  the  day  of  his  death  some  of  them 
persisted  in  beheving  that  his  greatness  was 
an  accident  or  a  miracle.  Lincoln's  own  words 
throw  light  on  what  were  the  guiding  motives 
of  his  inner  life: 

The  better  part  of  one's  life  consists  of  our  friend- 
ships, 

he  wrote  to  Judge  Gillespie. 

I  would  have  the  whole  human  race  your  friend  and 
mine, 

he  said  to  his  little  son  "  Tad." 


30        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:   HIS  STORY 

If  any  man  cease  to  attack  me  I  never  remember 
his  past  agednst  him, 

he  declared  in  one  of  his  speeches. 

Stand  with  anybody  that  stands  right,  and  part 
with  him  when  he  goes  wrong, 

he  said  to  men  who  esteem  their  party  more 
than  they  do  their  principles. 

The  advice  of  a  father  to  his  son,  "Beware  of  entrance 
to  a  quarrel,  but  being  in,  bear  it  that  the  opposed 
may  beware  of  thee,"  is  good,  but  not  the  best.  Quarrel 
not  at  all.  No  man  resolved  to  make  the  most  of  him- 
self can  spare  time  for  personal  contention.  Still  less 
can  he  afford  to  take  all  the  consequences,  including 
the  vitiating  of  his  temper  and  the  loss  of  self-control. 
Yield  larger  things  to  which  you  can  show  no  more 
than  equal  right;  yield  lesser  ones,  though  clearly  your 
own.  Better  give  your  path  to  a  dog  than  be  bitten  by 
him  in  contesting  the  right.  Even  killing  the  dog  would 
not  cure  the  bite. 

So  he  WTote,  and  so  he  Hved. 

He  trained  himself  into  a  habit  of  sympathy. 
No  man  with  whom  he  talked  even  for  a  few 
moments  but  felt  that  Lincoln  was  genuinely 
interested  in  him.  Men  trusted  him  for  that, 
and  because  they  saw  by  his  everyday  life  that 
his  sympathy  was  not  put  on  but  real.  We 
like  to  read  of  the  time  in  Springfield  when  he 
found  a  child  sobbing  on  the  porch  of  her  home. 
She  was  to  take  her  first  railroad  trip.  The 
family  had  gone  on  and  the  hackman  had  for- 
gotten to  call  for  her  trunk.     There  was  no 


THE  MAN  31 

time  to  get  him  before  the  train  went.  Lincohi 
shouldered  the  trunk  and  carried  it  on  his  back 
down  to  the  station,  arriving  just  in  time  to 
catch  the  train.  This  habit  of  kindness  never 
left  him  all  his  life  through.  He  was  merciful 
in  the  merciless  days  of  the  Civil  War.  He 
pardoned  men  condemned  for  cowardice  in 
battle.  "If  God  Almighty  gives  a  man  a  cow- 
ardly pair  of  legs,"  he  said,  "how  can  he  help 
running  away.I^" 

He  allowed  no  boys  of  eighteen  to  be  shot 
for  desertion.  Once  when  a  man  was  con- 
demned to  death  for  sleeping  at  his  post  he 
drove  ten  miles  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to 
make  sure  that  his  telegram  pardoning  him 
had  been  received.  On  the  very  day  of  his 
death  he  said  at  a  Cabinet  meeting,  when  the 
treatment  of  the  Confederate  leaders  was  under 
discussion:  "Enough  lives  have  been  sacrificed. 
We  must  extinguish  our  resentments." 

Thirty-six  hours  after  the  fall  of  Richmond 
Lincoln  visited  the  place  and  sought  out  the 
home  of  General  Pickett,  who  had  made  the 
great  charge  at  Gettysburg.  Lincohi  had 
known  him  as  a  boy.  He  found  the  house  and 
knocked  at  the  door.  "Is  this  where  George 
Pickett  lives?"  he  asked  a  woman  who  came 
to  answer  the  door  with  a  baby  in  her  arms. 
She  said  that  it  was  and  that  she  was  Mrs. 


32        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

Pickett.  "I  am  Abraham  Lincoln,  George's 
old  friend,"  he  said.  Then  he  took  the  baby 
in  his  arms  and  told  Mrs.  Pickett  that  every- 
thing would  be  done  to  make  her  comfortable 
and  her  home  safe. 

It  is  this  simplicity  and  kindness  which  com- 
panions Lincoln  forever  in  om*  thoughts  with 
the  gentle  and  heroic  of  older  lands,  so  that  of 
him  John  Bright,  the  Enghsh  statesman,  wrote : 
"In  him  I  have  observed  a  singular  resolution 
honestly  to  do  his  duty,  a  great  courage,  a  great 
gentleness  under  the  most  desperate  provoca- 
tions, and  a  pity  and  mercifulness  to  his  ene- 
mies. His  simplicity  did  much  to  hide  his 
greatness." 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  LAWYER 

A  1VLA.N  stands  revealed  by  his  work.  For 
twenty-three  years  Abraham  Lincoln  practiced 
law  and  sowed  the  harvest  which  the  nation 
reaped  in  his  presidency. 

He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1836,  and  his 
bar  examinations  consisted  simply  of  an  in- 
quiry into  his  moral  character.  In  those 
frontier  days  judges  and  lawyers  depended 
more  on  common-sense  than  on  common-law, 
and  most  of  the  courthouses  were  log  cabins. 
A  contemporary  of  Lincoln  remembered  that 
when  Judge  Jolm  Re^Tiolds  sat  in  the  Circuit 
Court  of  Washington  County,  the  sheriff 
opened  coml  by  coming  to  the  door  of  the  one- 
room  log-built  courthouse  and  shouting  to  the 
crowd  outside:  "Come  in,  boys;  our  John  is 
a-goin'  to  hold  court." 

Another  sheriff  used  to  announce  the  open- 
ing of  court  as  follows:  "Oh  yes!  Oh  yes!  Oh 
yes!    The  Honorable  Judge  is  now  opened!" 

One  of  the  judges  of  Lincoln's  time  once 
restored  order  in  his  court  by  leaving  the  bench 
and  thrashing  the  offenders,  remarking  as  he 
resumed  his  seat:    "I  don't  know  what  power 

33 


34        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

the  law  gives  me  to  keep  order  in  this  court, 
but  I  know  very  well  the  power  God  Almighty 
has  given  me." 

Another  one  of  Lincoln's  contemporaries 
tells  of  a  trial  which  he  attended,  when  the 
sheriff  burst  into  the  courtroom,  out  of  breath, 
and  announced  to  the  judge  that  he  had  six 
jurors  tied  up  and  that  his  deputies  were  run- 
ning down  the  others.  Evidently,  jury  duty 
was  no  more  popular  in  Lincoln's  day  than  it 
is  at  present. 

It  was  in  such  surroundings  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  began  the  practice  of  law.  His  legal 
training  dated  back  to  the  day  when  he  bought 
an  old  barrel  for  his  store  for  fifty  cents,  and 
discovered  under  some  rubbish  in  the  bottom 
a  complete  set  of  Blackstone's  Commentaries. 
He  afterward  said  that  was  the  best  stroke  of 
business  he  ever  did  as  a  storekeeper. 

Some  of  the  happiest  years  of  Lincoln's  life 
were  spent  in  walking  or  riding  the  circuit, 
which  embraced  more  than  a  dozen  counties 
and  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  broad. 
Once  before  he  was  able  to  afford  a  horse  he 
was  trudging  along  a  frozen  road  toward  a 
county-seat,  when  he  was  overtaken  by  a  man 
in  a  wagon. 

"Would  you  mind  carrying  my  overcoat  to 
town  for  me?"  inquired  Lincoln,  stopping  him. 


THE  LAWYER  35 

"Certainly,"  said  the  other,  "but  how  will 
you  get  it  again?" 

"Easy  enough,"  replied  Lincoln;  "I'll  stay 
inside  of  it!" 

Lincoln  always  had  trouble  in  getting  a  bed 
that  was  long  enough  for  him.  Once  when  trav- 
eling by  steamboat  he  found  his  usual  difficulty 
Mith  his  berth.  During  the  day  while  Lincoln 
was  on  deck  the  captain  had  it  lengthened  and 
widened.  The  next  morning  Lincoln  came  to 
breakfast  much  puzzled  and  said  solemnly 
that  a  great  miracle  had  happened.  During 
the  night  he  had  shiunk  at  least  a  foot  in  length 
and  over  six  inches  in  breadth! 

At  the  taverns  the  judge  and  lawyers  sat  at 
one  end  of  the  table,  while  the  witnesses  and 
prisoners,  with  the  ordinary  guests,  sat  at  the 
other.  Lincoln,  however,  was  often  found  at 
the  wrong  end  of  the  table  among  the  common 
folks.  Once  Judge  Davis,  who  ruled  the  whole 
bar  with  a  rod  of  iron,  tried  to  call  Lincoln  back 
to  his  end  of  the  table. 

"Come  up  here  where  you  belong,  Lincoln," 
he  shouted. 

"Got  anything  better  to  eat  at  your  end. 
Judge?"  drawled  Lincoln,  remaining  where 
he  was. 

He  soon  became  one  of  the  best  known  and 
best  liked  men  throughout  this  great  expanse 


36        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

of  country.  In  his  hand  he  usually  carried  a 
queer,  old  carpet-bag.  Although  he  was  al- 
ways careless  about  his  clothes  he  kept  him- 
self scrupulously  clean,  and  had  learned  that  a 
man  who  shaves  every  day  will  go  much  farther 
than  one  who  does  not.  Sometimes  his  appear- 
ance was  against  him,  as  when  he  was  sent  by 
his  first  partner,  Major  Stuart,  to  try  a  case 
in  an  adjoining  county  for  one  Baddeley,  an 
Enghshman.  The  latter,  who  was  accustomed 
to  the  bewigged,  powdered,  and  gowned  advo- 
cates of  his  home-country,  was  disgusted  to 
find  that  he  was  to  be  represented  by  a  tall, 
awkward  young  man  whose  trousers  were  as 
much  too  short  as  his  coat  was  too  large. 
Baddeley  immediately  sent  him  back  to  Stuart 
and  retained  someone  else.  He  lived,  however, 
to  become  one  of  Lincoln's  most  enthusiastic 
admirers. 

In  1850  Lincoln  in  a  lecture  to  young  lawyers 
made  some  suggestions  which  are  worth  repeat- 
ing: 

The  leading  rule  for  a  lawyer,  as  for  the  man  of  every 
other  calling,  is  diligence.  Leave  nothing  for  tomorrow 
which  can  be  done  today.  Never  let  your  correspond- 
ence fall  behind.  .  .  .  Extemporaneous  speaking  should 
be  practiced  and  cultivated.  It  is  the  lawyer's  avenue 
to  the  public.  However  able  and  faithful  he  may  be  in 
other  respects,  people  are  slow  to  bring  him  business 
if  he  cannot  make  a  speech.  And  yet  there  is  not  a 
more  fatal  error  to  young  lawyers  than  relying  too 
much  on  speech-making.     If  anyone,  upon  his  rare 


( 


THE  LAWYER  37 

powers  of  speaking,  shall  claim  an  exemption  from  the 
drudgery  of  the  law,  his  case  is  a  failure  in  advance. 

Lincoln  brought  into  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession the  same  charity  and  kindness  that  he 
had  shown  as  a  laborer,  a  storekeeper,  and  a 
surveyor.  A  young  lawyer  tells  about  arguing 
his  first  case  in  Chicago  and  making  a  failure 
of  it.  After  he  had  sat  down  in  despair  a  com- 
plete stranger  to  him  came  forward  from  the 
back  of  the  room  and  stated  that,  as  a  member 
of  the  bar,  he  claimed  the  privilege  of  helping 
a  young  man  who  was  evidently  embarrassed. 
In  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  lawyers  on  the 
other  side,  the  court  allowed  him  to  do  this, 
and  he  delivered  a  short,  concise  summing-up 
of  the  case  which  won  it  for  the  novice.  The 
latter  afterward  found  out  that  the  stranger  was 
Abraham  Lincoln  from  Springfield. 

Lincoln  also  had  the  rare  faculty  of  trying 
a  case  without  insulting  or  quarreling  with  his 
opponent.  During  all  the  years  of  his  practice 
he  never  made  an  enemy  of  another  lawyer. 

The  honesty  of  Lincoln's  character  was  al- 
ways evident  in  his  practice.  Once  Herndon, 
his  young  partner,  had  drawn  up  a  dilatory 
plea  which  would  throw  a  case  over  at  least 
one  term  of  court.  "Is  this  founded  on  fact?" 
demanded  Lincoln.  Herndon  admitted  that 
it  was  not,  but  urged  that  it  would  save  the 


38        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:   HIS  STORY 

interests  of  their  clients  if  the  delay  was  ob- 
tained. "You  know  it  is  a  sham,"  replied 
Lincoln,  "and  a  sham  is  very  often  another 
name  for  a  lie.  Don't  let  it  go  on  record.  The 
cm-sed  thing  may  come  staring  us  in  the  face 
long  after  this  suit  has  been  forgotten." 

Such  scrupulous  honesty  Lincoln  carried 
through  all  his  practice.  It  gave  him  a  stand- 
ing and  a  reputation  which  were  worth  more  to 
him  than  fine  gold.  He  never  made  the  mistake 
that  young  lawyers  sometimes  make  of  sacri- 
ficing a  reputation  for  honesty  for  the  sake  of 
winning  a  case.  Moreover,  unless  he  had 
confidence  in  a  case  he  would  not  take  it. 

Once  when  it  was  shown  that  his  client  had 
been  guilty  of  fraud  he  walked  out  of  the  court- 
room and  refused  to  continue  the  trial.  The 
judge  sent  a  messenger,  directing  him  to  re- 
turn, but  he  positively  dechned.  "Tell  the 
judge  that  my  hands  are  dirty,  and  that  I  have 
gone  away  to  wash  them,"  was  the  answer  that 
he  sent  back. 

"Discourage  htigation.  Persuade  your  neigh- 
bors to  compromise  whenever  you  can.  Point 
out  to  them  how  the  nominal  winner  is  often 
a  real  loser — in  fees,  expenses,  and  waste  of 
time.  As  a  peacemaker  the  lawyer  has  a 
superior  opportunity  of  being  a  good  man. 
There    will    still    be    business    enough."      So 


Lincoln  in  Early  Manhood. 


THE  LAWYER  39 

Lincoln  lectured,  and  no  man  at  the  bar  ever 
carried  out  this  advice  more  conscientiously. 
Once  he  was  asked  to  collect  a  claim  of  two 
and  a  half  dollars  and  his  client  insisted,  against 
Lincoln's  advice,  that  suit  be  brought.  Lincoln 
thereupon  gravely  demanded  ten  doUais  as  a 
retainer.  Half  of  this  he  gave  to  the  defendant, 
who  then  confessed  judgment  and  paid  the 
two  and  a  half.  By  this  method  he  satisfied 
both  parties. 

"Yes,  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  I  can 
gain  your  case  for  you,"  he  said  to  another 
client,  who  had  stated  a  case  which  Lincoln 
thought  an  objectionable  one.  "I  can  set  a 
whole  neighborhood  at  loggerheads;  I  can  dis- 
tress a  widowed  mother  and  her  six  fatherless 
children  and  thereby  get  for  you  six  hundred 
dollars,  which  rightfully  belongs,  it  appears  to 
me,  as  much  to  them  as  to  you.  I  shall  not 
take  your  case,  but  I  will  give  you  a  little  ad- 
vice for  nothing.  You  seem  a  sprightly,  ener- 
getic man.  I  would  advise  you  to  try  your 
hand  at  making  six  hundred  dollars  in  some 
other  way." 

The  lawyer,  however,  who  under-estimated 
Lincoln  at  a  trial  soon  found  that  he  had  made 
a  fatal  mistake.  Underneath  Lincoln's  hon- 
esty, frankness,  and  fairness  was  a  consummate 
mastery  of  tactics,  an  intimate  knowledge  of 


40        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

human  nature,  and  a  broad  grasp  of  legal  prin- 
ciples, which  finally  made  him  the  leader  of  the 
Illinois  bar,  "A  stranger  going  into  a  court 
when  he  was  trying  a  case  would  after  a  few 
minutes  find  himself  instinctively  on  Lincoln's 
side  and  wishing  him  success."  This  was  the 
way  his  methods  impressed  an  associate. 

Lincoln's  mildness  and  good  humor  were 
habitual,  but  woe  be  to  him  who  relied  on  those 
qualities  to  take  a  wrongful  advantage  of  his 
client.  In  a  murder  case  in  which  he  repre- 
sented the  defendant,  the  judge  unexpectedly 
made  a  ruling  which  was  contrary  to  the  de- 
cisions of  the  Supreme  Court  and  was  most  in- 
jmious  to  Lincoln's  client.  A  spectator  de- 
scribed what  follows:  "Lincoln  rose  to  his  feet 
as  quick  as  thought  and  was  the  most  unearthly 
looking  man  imaginable.  He  roared  like  a 
lion  roused  from  his  lair  and  he  said  and  did 
more  things  in  ten  minutes  than  he  ordinarily 
said  and  did  in  an  hour." 

Perhaps  the  real  secret  of  his  succcvss  at  the 
bar  can  best  be  summed  up  by  the  statement 
of  E.  M.  Prince,  who  had  seen  him  try  over  a 
hundred  cases  of  all  kinds: 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  genius  for  seeing  the  real  point  in 
a  case  at  once  and  aiming  steadily  at  it  from  the  be- 
ginning of  a  trial  to  the  end.  The  issue  in  most  cases 
lies  in  very  narrow  compass,  and  the  really  great  lawyer 
disregards  everything  not  directly  tending  to  that  issue. 


THE  LAWYER  41 

The  mediocre  advocate  is  apt  to  miss  the  crucial  point 
in  his  case  and  is  easily  diverted  by  minor  matters. 
Mr.  Lincoln  instinctively  saw  the  kernel  of  every  case 
at  the  outset,  never  lost  sight  of  it,  and  never  let  it 
escape  the  jury. 

Often  he  clinched  his  point  with  some  anec- 
dote which  so  riveted  it  in  the  minds  of  the 
jury  that  it  could  not  be  dislodged  by  any 
amount  of  eloquence  from  his  opponent.  There 
was  the  case  where  he  appeared  for  a  defendant 
who  was  charged  with  assault  and  battery.  It 
was  proved  that  the  plaintiff,  who  had  been 
seriously  injured,  had  made  the  first  attack, 
but  his  lawyer  argued  that  the  defendant 
should  not  have  defended  himself  so  force- 
fully. 

"That  reminds  me  of  the  man  who  was  attacked  by 
a  farmer's  dog,  which  he  killed  with  a  pitchfork,"  com- 
mented Lincoln.  "  'What  made  you  kill  my  dog .3' 
demanded  the  farmer.  'What  made  him  try  to  bite 
me?'  said  the  other.  'But  why  didn't  you  go  at  him 
with  the  other  end  of  your  pitchfork.^'  persisted  the 
farmer.  'Well,  why  didn't  he  come  at  me  with  his 
other  end.^'  was  the  retort." 

Another  time  Lincoln  disposed  of  the  con- 
tention that  custom  makes  law  with  this  anec- 
dote: 

Old  Squire  Bagley  from  Menard  once  came  to  my 
oflBce  and  said,  "Lincoln,  I  want  your  advice  as  a 
lawyer.  Has  a  man  what's  been  elected  a  justice  of 
the  peace  a  right  to  issue  a  marriage  license?"  I  told 
him  he  had  not.     "Lincoln,  I  thought  you  was  a  law- 


42        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

yer,"  he  retorted.  "Bob  Thomas  and  me  had  a  bet 
on  this  thing  and  we  agreed  to  let  you  decide  it;  but 
if  that  is  your  opinion,  I  don't  want  it,  for  I  know  a 
blame  sight  better.  I've  been  squire  now  eight  years, 
and  I've  done  it  all  the  time!" 

The  case  of  Duff  Armstrong,  who  was  ac- 
cused of  murder,  well  shows  Lincoln  as  a  man 
and  as  a  lawyer.  Duff  was  the  son  of  Jack 
Armstrong,  the  leader  of  the  Clary  Grove  gang, 
whom  Lincoln  had  once  whipped  in  a  fight 
when  he  was  working  as  a  clerk  at  New  Salem. 
Afterward  Jack  and  he  had  become  firm  friends. 
Duff  and  two  others  named  Norris  and  Metzker 
had  been  drinking  and  there  had  been  a  free 
fight.  Metzker  had  been  struck  over  the  head 
with  a  club  by  Norris  and  had  received  other 
injuries.  Norris  had  already  been  convicted 
of  manslaughter  and  the  case  looked  bad  for 
Duff  Armstrong,  who  claimed  that  although 
he  had  struck  Metzker  with  his  fist  he  had 
not  been  guilty  of  the  injuries  which  had 
caused  the  former's  death. 

Jack  Armstrong  by  this  time  had  died,  and 
his  widow  appealed  to  Lincoln.  He  was  in  the 
middle  of  a  poHtical  campaign,  but  he  dropped 
everything  to  help  the  son  of  his  old  friend.  At 
the  trial  a  witness  by  the  name  of  Allen  took 
the  stand  and  swore  that  he  had  actually  seen 
Duff  strike  Metzker  a  blow  with  a  blackjack. 
On  cross-examination  Lincoln  brought  out  the 


THE  LAWYER  43 

fact  that  the  fight  had  occurred  at  about  eleven 
o'clock  at  night,  away  from  any  house  or  light. 
Then  he  asked  the  witness  how  he  had  been 
able  to  see  the  occurrence  so  plainly.  "By  the 
moonlight,"  answered  the  witness. 

Under  further  cross-examination  Lincoln  had 
Allen  locate  the  position  of  the  moon  and  testify 
that  it  was  about  full.  Lincoln  asked  him  no 
further  questions  and  scarcely  cross-examined 
the  other  witnesses,  none  of  whom  had  actually 
seen  the  fight.  Under  the  law  of  Illinois  at  that 
time  the  defendant  was  not  permitted  to  take 
the  stand  himself.  As  Lincoln  allowed  wit- 
ness after  witness  to  testify,  with  scarcely  a 
word  of  cross-examination,  all  the  spectators 
in  the  courtroom  felt  that  the  case  against 
Armstrong  was  hopeless.  This  feeling  became 
a  certainty  when  Lincoln  announced  that  he 
would  call  no  witnesses,  and  had  only  one  ex- 
hibit to  offer  in  evidence.  This  exhibit,  how- 
ever, turned  out  to  be  an  almanac  which 
showed  that  the  moon  was  only  in  its  first 
quarter  and  nearly  set.  Making  but  one  point 
— the  complete  discrediting  of  the  only  eye- 
witness— Lincoln  summed  up  to  the  jury  and 
acquitted  his  client. 

There  can  be  no  better  ending  to  an  account 
of  Lincoln's  life  as  a  lawyer  than  the  advice 
which  he  once  gave  to  young  lawyers: 


44        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

Let  no  young  man  choosing  the  law  for  a  calling 
yield  to  the  popular  belief  that  a  lawyer  cannot  be  an 
honest  man.  If  in  your  judgment  you  cannot  be  an 
honest  lawyer  resolve  to  be  honest  without  being  a 
lawyer.     Choose  some  other  occupation. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  SPEAKER 

It  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  speaking  which 
made  him  the  President  of  the  United  States. 
His  first  speech  when  he  was  twenty-three 
years  old  raised  him  out  of  the  ranks  of  day- 
laborers  in  his  tiny  town.  Later  his  speeches 
sent  him  to  the  state  legislature,  to  Congress, 
and  to  the  White  House,  and  pointed  out  the 
path  which  this  nation  followed  and  is  still 
following,  although  Lincoln  has  been  in  his 
grave  for  more  than  half  a  century. 

How  did  he  do  it?  How  did  this  awkward, 
poor,  uneducated  man,  with  a  bad  speaking 
voice  which  often  broke,  make  himself  the 
greatest  orator  of  his  day?  How  did  he  deliver 
the  Gettysburg  Address,  "which  will  live  until 
languages  are  dead  and  lips  are  dust"?  His 
methods  are  plain  and  simple.  Every  boy  and 
every  man,  by  following  them,  can  make  him- 
self a  speaker,  and  add  to  his  influence  with 
men.  Here  are  some  of  Lincoln's  rules  for 
oratory : 

Don't  shoot  too  high.  Aim  low  and  the  common 
people  will  understand  you.  They  are  the  ones  you 
want  to  reach — at  least  they  are  the  ones  you  oaghl 
to  reach.     The  educated  and  refined  people  will  under- 

45 


46        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

stand  you,  anyway.  If  you  aim  too  high  your  ideas 
will  go  over  the  heads  of  the  masses  and  only  hit  those 
who  need  no  hitting. 

As  a  lawyer  he  never  used  a  word  that  the 
dullest  juryman  could  not  understand.  He 
followed  the  same  method  as  a  speaker.  At 
Yale  University  the  writer  studied  elocution 
under  Prof.  Mark  Bailey,  who  had  taught  his 
father  before  him.  Prof.  Bailey  first  heard 
Lincoln  speak  when  he  was  stumping  New 
England  for  Fremont.  He  was  so  impressed 
with  Lincoln's  power  that  he  followed  him  from 
town  to  town  to  hear  him. 

Finally  he  succeeded  in  having  a  talk  with 
him  and  asked  him  to  explain  his  success  as  a 
speaker.  "Well,  all  I  know,"  said  Lincoln,  "is 
that  when  neighbors  would  come  to  my  father's 
house  cind  talk  to  father  in  language  I  did  not 
understand,  I  would  become  offended  some- 
times and  I  would  find  myself  going  to  bed 
that  night  unable  to  sleep.  I  bounded  it  on 
the  north,  south,  east,  and  west  until  I  had 
caught  the  idea,  and  then  I  said  it  to  myself 
and  when  I  said  it,  I  used  the  language  I  would 
use  when  talking  to  the  boys  on  the  street." 

That  was  one  of  the  secrets  of  Lincoln's  ora- 
tory— ^the  use  of  the  small  word.  He  never 
used  a  big  word  when  a  little  one  would  do.  His 
sentences  were  usually  short  and  he  spoke  not 


Barnard's  Statue  of  I.incoln. 


THE  SPEAKER  47 

to  be  heaid  but  to  be  understood.  More  than 
fifty  per  cent,  of  the  Avords  used  in  his  great 
speeches  are  words  of  one  syllable.  He  would 
say,  "I  dug  a  ditch,"  instead  of,  "I  excavated  a 
channel";  "I  lost  out  by  bad  luck,"  instead  of, 
"I  was  defeated  by  a  fortuitous  combination 
of  circumstances."  It  is  for  this  reason  that  he 
is  quoted  more  than  any  other  American  except 
Frankhn,  another  master  of  short  sentences. 

In  the  Gettysburg  Address,  the  greatest 
short  speech  in  the  Enghsh  language,  he  used 
two  hundred  and  seventy-one  words.  Of  these 
exactly  two  hundred  are  words  of  one  syllable, 
or  almost  seventy-four  per  cent.  There  are 
whole  Hues  of  short  words,  such  as:  "That 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain."  This 
use  of  the  short  word  gives  his  sentences  a  force 
like  the  impact  of  a  bullet. 

Again,  Lincoln  was  a  master  in  the  use  of 
Anglo-Saxon.  We  are  not  a  Latin  race  and 
the  speaker  or  the  writer  who  can  use  language 
from  our  Saxon  and  Viking  forebears  will  al- 
ways most  strongly  appeal  to  us.  Examine 
some  of  Lincoln's  best  sentences,  such  as: 

The  father  of  waters  again  goes  unvexed  to  the  sea. 

That  this  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 

As  sm-e  as  God  reigns  and  school-children  read,  that 
black,  foul  he  can  never  be  consecrated  into  God's 
hallowed  truth. 


48        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  :   HIS  STORY 

There  is  hardly  a  word  from  the  Latin  or  the 
Greek  in  them. 

The  use  of  quaint,  homely  sirailies  and  illus- 
trations was  another  of  Lincoln's  methods. 
When  the  mayor  of  New  York,  in  the  panic 
and  bewilderment  which  followed  the  breaking 
out  of  the  CivU  War,  proposed  that  New  York 
City  be  taken  out  of  the  Union  and  made  a 
free  city — another  Hamburg — Lincoln  dis- 
posed of  the  plan  in  one  sentence : 

It  will  be  some  time  before  the  front  door  sets  up 
housekeeping  on  its  own  account. 

When  his  plan  of  reconstruction  was  objected 
to  as  not  elaborate  enough,  Lincoln  defended 
it  with  an  illustration: 

Admit  that  my  policy  is  in  the  beginning  to  what 
the  final  policy  will  be  in  the  end  as  an  egg  is  to  the 
chicken.  Don't  you  think  that  you  will  get  the  ciiicken 
quicker  by  hatching  the  egg  than  by  smashing  it? 

His  speeches  were  full  of  homely  epigrams 
which  needed  only  to  be  heard  to  be  admitted, 
and  which  stuck  forever  in  his  hearers'  mem- 
ories : 

God  must  have  loved  the  common  people,  for  he 
made  so  many  of  them. 

You  can  fool  all  of  the  people  some  of  the  time,  and 
some  of  the  people  all  of  the  time,  but  you  cannot  fool 
all  of  the  people  all  of  the  time. 


THE  SPEAKER  49 

Anything  that  argues  me  into  social  and  poh'tical 
equality  with  the  negro  is  but  a  specious  and  fantastic 
arrangement  of  words,  as  if  a  man  could  prove  a  horse- 
chestnut  to  be  a  chestnut  horse. 

Again  he  would  crystallize  his  whole  argu- 
ment into  a  single  sentence: 

Among  free  men  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal 
from  the  ballot  to  the  bullet. 

We  must  not  promise  what  we  ought  not,  lest  we 
be  called  upon  to  perform  what  we  cannot. 

We  will  say  to  the  Southern  disunionist,  "We  won't 
go  out  of  the  Union  and  you  shan't!" 

I  protest  against  the  counterfeit  logic  which  con- 
cludes that  because  I  do  not  want  a  black  woman  for 
a  slave,  I  must  necessarily  want  her  for  a  wife. 

On  the  platform  as  in  court  Lincoln  could 
retort  severely  if  the  occasion  demanded  it. 
When  only  twenty-six  years  of  age  he  was  once 
bitterly  attacked  at  a  political  meeting  by  a 
sarcastic  speaker  of  great  local  reputation,  who 
had  changed  his  politics  and  by  so  doing  had 
been  appointed  Register  of  the  Land  Office. 
Moreover,  he  had  the  distinction  of  owning 
the  only  lightning-rod  in  the  county.  \Mien 
Lincoln  came  to  reply  he  said: 

I  am  yoimg  in  years  but  younger  in  the  tricks  and 
trade  of  a  politician.  IA\e  long  or  die  young,  however, 
I  would  rather  die  now  than  like  the  last  speaker  change 
my  politics  in  order  to  receive  three  thousand  a  year 
and  then  have  to  erect  a  lightning-rod  over  my  house 
to  protect  my  guilty  conscience  from  an  offended  God. 


50        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

Like  Franklin,  Lincoln  possessed  in  an  ex- 
traordinary degree  the  power  of  persuasion. 
Can  anything  be  more  appealing,  more  frank, 
more  void  of  offense,  than  his  appeal  to  the 
South  in  his  First  Inaugural  Address? 

Can  aliens  make  treaties  easier  than  friends  can 
make  laws?  Can  treaties  be  more  faithfully  enforced 
between  aUens  than  laws  can  among  friends?  ...  I  am 
loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies  but  friends.  We 
must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have 
strained  it  must  not  break  om*  bonds  of  affection.  The 
mystic  chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle- 
field and  patriot  grave  to  every  Uving  heart  and  hearth- 
stone all  over  this  broad  land,  wiU  yet  swell  the  chorus 
of  the  Union  when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  wiU  be, 
by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature. 

Like  Franklin,  too,  Lincoln  possessed  the 
tact  of  a  true  statesman.  The  night  of  Lee's 
surrender  at  Appomattox  there  was  a  wild 
time  in  Washington.  A  band  serenaded  the 
President,  playing  various  patriotic  airs,  such 
as  "Columbia"  and  "The  Star-Spangled  Ban- 
ner." When  Lincoln  was  called  upon  to  speak 
he  turned  to  the  bandmaster  and  said:  "Play 
'Dixie'  now.    It's  ours  again." 

Another  secret  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  strength 
as  a  speaker  was  the  fact  that  he  had  saturated 
his  mind  with  the  two  great  masterpieces  of 
English  Uterature,  the  King  James'  Version  of 
the  Bible  and  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
Lincoln  read  and  reread,  again  and  again,  both 


THE  SPEAKER  51 

of  these  books  until  they  became  for  him  a 
storehouse  to  which  he  turned  unconsciously 
for  words,  and  phrases,  and  ideas.  A  part  of 
his  great  speech  in  1857  on  the  Dred  Scott 
Decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  which,  in  effect, 
took  away  the  last  rights  of  the  negro,  might 
have  been  written  by  Bunyan : 

All  the  powers  of  earth  seem  rapidly  combining 
against  the  black  man.  Mammon  is  after  him;  am- 
bition follows,  philosophy  follows,  and  the  theology  of 
the  day  is  fast  joining  in  the  cry.  They  have  him  in  the 
prison  house;  they  have  searched  his  person  and  left 
no  prying  instrument  with  him.  One  after  another 
they  have  closed  the  heavy  iron  doors  upon  him;  and 
now  they  have  him,  as  it  were,  bolted  in  with  a  lock  of 
a  hundred  keys,  which  cannot  be  unlocked  without 
the  concurrence  of  every  key;  the  keys  in  the  hands  of  a 
hundred  different  men,  and  they  scattered  to  a  hundred 
different  places;  and  they  stand,  musing  as  to  what  in- 
vention in  all  the  dominions  of  mind  and  matter  can 
be  produced  to  make  the  impossibiUty  of  escape  more 
complete  them  it  is. 

Who  but  one  nourished  on  the  imagery  of 
the  Bible  could  have  spoken  as  Lincoln  did  in 
his  first  reply  to  Senator  Douglas  in  1854.^ 

These  principles  cannot  stand  together.  They  are 
as  opposite  as  God  and  Mammon,  and  whosoever 
holds  to  the  one  must  despise  the  other.  .  .  .  Our 
Repubhcan  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in  the  dust.  Let 
us  purify  it.  Let  us  turn  and  wash  it  white  in  the  spirit 
if  not  the  blood  of  the  Revolution. 

Last  and  first  and  all  the  time  Lincoln's 
power  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  always  had  some- 


52        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:   HIS  STORY 

thing  to  say.  He  thought  things  out  for  him- 
self, instead  of  accepting  other  men's  con- 
clusions. In  1856,  at  the  first  convention  of 
the  Republican  party,  he  delivered  a  speech 
which  cast  such  a  speU  over  his  audience  that 
even  the  reporters  forgot  to  take  notes.  For 
years  it  was  known  as  the  "Lost  Speech." 
Finally  in  recent  years  a  report  of  it  was  found. 
Across  the  years  the  echo  of  it  thrills  us  today. 
Every  young  man  should  read  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's speech  of  May  19,  1856,  which  created 
a  great  party  and  outlined  principles  that  this 
country  has  made  a  part  of  itself. 

It  was  on  November  19,  1863,  that  Lincoln 
reached  his  full  height  as  an  orator.  The 
national  cemetery  at  Gettysburg  was  to  be 
dedicated.  Edward  Everett  had  spoken  for 
two  hours,  furbishing  up  old  ideas  and  redress- 
ing old  thoughts  with  wonderful  rhetoric  and 
eloquence.  Then  Lincoln  spoke  for  five  min- 
utes. Today  no  one  remembers  a  sentence,  a 
line,  or  an  idea  from  Everett's  speech.  Read 
what  Lincoln  said,  and  note  how  every  sentence 
rings  true  and  famihar,  like  some  oft-heard 
chapter  of  the  Bible: 

Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in 
liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men 
are  created  equal.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great 
civil  war,  testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation 


THE  SPEAKER  53 

so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We 
are  met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  have 
come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  rest- 
ing-place for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that 
nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper 
that  we  should  do  this.  But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  can- 
not dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow, 
this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who 
struggled  here  have  consecrated  it  far  above  oiu*  poor 
power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note 
nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never 
forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us  the  hving,  rather, 
to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they 
who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is 
rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  greet  task  re- 
maining before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they 
gave  the  last  full  measure  of  deA^otion — that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in 
vain,  that  this  nation  under  God  shall  have  a  new  birth 
of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  STATESMAN 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  difference  be- 
tween a  politician  and  a  statesman  is  that  a 
politician  tries  to  make  the  people  do  something 
for  him,  while  a  statesman  tries  to  do  some- 
thing for  the  people.  Applying  this  test  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  always  a  statesman.  In  his 
first  speech  in  1832,  when  he  was  only  twenty- 
tliree  years  old,  he  declared: 

Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  peculiar  ambition. 
Whether  it  be  true  or  not  I  can  say  for  one  that  I  have 
no  other  so  great  as  that  of  being  truly  esteemed  of 
my  fellow-men  by  rendering  myself  worthy  of  their 
esteem. 

It  was  the  recognition  that  he  was  really 
trying  to  serve  them  and  not  himself  which 
gave  him  the  confidence  of  the  people.  More- 
over, he  had  the  same  trust  in  the  people  that 
they  had  in  him. 

Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient  confidence  in 
the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people.^*  ...  Is  there  any 
better  or  equal  hope  in  the  world.** 

he  asked  in  one  of  his  speeches. 

Honesty  was  the  policy  on  which  he  founded 
his  pubhc  life.  In  1834,  when  he  was  first 
elected  to  the  Illinois  legislature,  his  friends 

54 


THE  STATESMAN  55 

raised  a  fund  of  two  hundred  dollars  for  his 

election  expenses.     After  the  campaign  was 

over  he  returned  to  them  $199.25  of  this  fund. 

In  1836  he  first  showed  in  pubhc  life  that  moral 

courage  which  was  to  carry  him  so  far.    A  bill 

was  introduced  to  move  the  capital  of  Illinois 

to  Springfield,  which  was  Lincoln's  home  and 

where  he  and  all  his  constituents  wished  the 

capital  to  be.    Another  measure,  of  which  he 

did  not  approve,  was  joined  as  a  rider  to  this 

bill,   in  the  hope  that  it  might  be  passed. 

Lincohi  refused  to  vote  for  it.     An  all-night 

meeting  was  held  and  great  pressure  brought 

to  bear  upon  him  by  prominent  citizens  from 

all  over  the  state.     Finally,  after  midnight, 

Lincoln  rose  amid  profound  silence  and  made  an 

earnest  speech,  ending  with  this  statement  of 

one  of  the  abiding  principles  of  his  pohtical 

Ufe: 

You  will  never  get  me  to  support  a  measure  which 
I  believe  to  be  wrong,  although  by  so  doing  I  may  ac- 
comphsh  that  which  I  beheve  to  be  right. 

In  1837  he  again  had  a  chance  to  show  his 
moral  courage  against  odds.  Incidentally  he 
began  to  carry  out  the  promise  which  he  had 
made  when  he  first  saw  slaves  sold  on  the  block. 
A  few  men  had  met  together  in  Boston  and, 
protesting  against  slavery,  had  pledged  them- 
selves to  fight  for  its  abolition.    It  seems  strange 


56        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  :  HIS  STORY 

in  these  days,  when  all  men  are  free  as  a  matter 
of  course,  to  read  of  the  fire  and  fury  that  arose 
against  the  Abolitionists  in  both  the  North 
and  the  South.  A  mob  of  prominent  citizens 
dragged  WUliam  Lloyd  Garrison,  one  of  the 
first  of  the  Abohtionists,  through  the  streets  of 
Boston  with  a  halter  around  bis  body,  while  in 
Cincinnati  the  publication  of  an  anti-slavery 
paper  was  stopped  by  the  simple  process  of 
throwing  the  printing-press  into  the  Ohio 
River,  and  in  Illinois  an  editor  was  murdered. 
When  a  resolution  was  offered  in  the  legis- 
lature of  Illinois,  attacking  abolition  and  de- 
fending slavery,  Lincoln  and  one  other  man 
voted  against  it.  Lincoln  offered  a  counter- 
resolution  that  the  institution  of  slavery  was 
not  only  founded  on  injustice  but  was  bad 
policy.  At  that  time  he  announced  another 
of  his  political  principles: 

The  probability  that  we  may  fail  in  a  worthy  cause 
is  not  a  sufficient  justification  for  our  refusing  to  sup- 
port it. 

In  1847  Lincoln  was  elected  to  Congress. 
His  own  estimate  of  himself  and  his  life  up  to 
that  time  is  contained  in  a  few  lines  prepared 
for  the  Congressional  Record,  in  contrast  Avith 
the  pages  of  biography  so  often  inflicted  on 
that  publication.    It  ran  as  follows: 


THE  STATESMAN  57 

Born,  February  12,  1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Ky. 

Education,  defective. 

Profession,  a  lawyer. 

Have  been  a  captain  of  volunteers  in  Black  Hawk 
War. 

Postmaster  in  a  very  small  office. 

Four  times  a  member  of  the  Illinois  legislature,  and 
a  member  of  the  Lower  House  of  Congress. 

In  Congress  he  voted  against  the  iniquitous 
Mexican  War,  although  his  stand  cost  him  a 
re-election.    He  wrote  to  Herndon,  his  partner: 

Would  you  have  voted  what  you  felt  and  knew  to  be 
a  lie?  I  know  you  would  not.  Would  you  have  gone 
out  of  the  House — skulked  the  vote;'    I  expect  not. 

Lincoln  returned  to  private  hfe  with  his  pop- 
ularity shattered  but  with  his  conscience  whole. 
Apparently  his  principles  had  mustered  him 
out  of  public  hfe  forever. 

Time  went  on.  Stephen  A.  Douglas  had 
brought  about  in  Congress  a  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  which  was  an  agree- 
ment that  slavery  should  be  kept  out  of  all 
territory  north  of  a  certain  parallel.  Lincoln 
was  riding  circuit  when  the  news  of  the  repeal 
of  this  last  safeguard  against  slavery  was 
brought  to  him.  A  friend  who  occupied  the 
same  room  with  him  that  night  told  afterward 
how  Lincoln  spent  the  evening  discussing  the 
repeal  and  what  it  meant  to  the  country. 
When  this  friend  woke  up  in  the  morning  he 


58        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

saw  Lincoln  sitting  just  where  he  had  left  him 
the  night  before.  As  if  the  conversation  had 
not  been  interrupted  Lincoln  said  to  him:  "I 
tell  you,  this  country  cannot  continue  to  exist 
half-slave  and  half-free." 

That  sentence  became  the  keynote  of  his 
convictions.  From  that  night  he  again  entered 
politics.  One  of  his  friends  was  running  for 
re-election  to  Congress.  Lincoln  began  to 
speak  for  him  and  in  aU  of  his  speeches  he  at- 
tacked the  extension  of  slavery.  Finally  in 
1858  he  was  nominated  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  for  the  seat  then  occupied  by  Douglas. 
At  a  convention  at  Springfield  he  said: 

I  do  not  believe  that  this  government  can  perma- 
nently endure  half-slave  and  half-free.  I  do  not  ex- 
pect the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to 
be  divided. 

This  thought  aroused  men  like  a  firebell  at 
midnight.  There  followed  the  great  debate 
between  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  rival  candidates  for  the  Senate.  The 
prize  was  the  presidency  of  the  United  States. 
The  odds  seemed  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of 
Douglas.  He  was  wealthy,  a  senator,  a  trained 
debater  with  a  magnificent  voice,  and  the 
leader  of  the  Democratic  party.  Lincoln  was 
hardly  known  except  as  an  able  country  law- 
yer.   Douglas  traveled  in  a  special  train,  car- 


President  Lincoln  and  General  McClellan  at  Antietam, 

October  2,  1.S62,  Soon  After  the  Battle. 
Photograph   by    Brady       From    the    collection    of  Frederick    Hill 
Mexerve.  Xew  York  Citu. 


THE  STATESMAN  59 

rying  a  cannon  that  announced  his  presence 
at  each  town  where  he  spoke.  Lincohi  was 
likely  to  arrive  shabby  and  haggard  from  an 
all-night  ride  in  a  day-coach.  At  first  the 
rhetoric  and  eloquence  of  Douglas  seemed  to 
give  him  the  advantage.  Little  by  little  Lin- 
coln began  to  win  a  verdict  from  his  audiences 
by  the  naked  force  of  his  arguments  and  his 
pitiless  logic.  Finally,  Lincoln  propounded  to 
his  opponent  a  question  as  unanswerable  as 
the  one  that  Christ  asked  the  Pharisees.  Which- 
ever way  he  answered  it  Douglas  would  inevit- 
ably lose  the  support  of  either  the  North  or  the 
South.  Douglas  tried  to  compromise.  By  so 
doing  he  won  the  race  for  the  senatorship  but 
lost  the  contest  for  the  presidency  later  on. 

"We  accuse  him  for  this,"  thundered  Judah  P.  Ben- 
jamin, the  most  able  of  the  Southern  senators.  "Under 
the  stress  of  a  local  election  his  knees  gave  way,  his 
whole  person  trembled.  His  adversary  stood  upon 
principle  and  was  beaten;  and  lo,  he  is  the  candidate 
of  a  mighty  party  for  the  presidency  of  the  United 
States.  The  senator  from  Illinois  faltered.  He  got 
the  prize  for  which  he  faltered,  but  the  grand  prize  of 
his  ambition  today  shps  from  his  grasp  because  of  his 
faltering  in  his  former  contest;  and  his  success  in  the 
canvass  for  the  Senate,  purchased  for  an  ignoble  price, 
has  cost  him  the  loss  of  the  presidency  of  the  United 
States!" 

There  followed  the  convention  and  campaign 
of  1860,  and  the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
to  the  presidency  of  the  United  States.    Under 


60        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  :  HIS  STORY 

the  responsibilities  and  discipline  of  that  great 
office  Lincoln  reached  his  full  stature  as  a 
statesman  and  grew  into  the  heroic  figure 
which  has  come  down  to  us.  Only  a  great  man 
could  have  shown  the  magnanimity  and  for- 
getfulness  of  self  which  he  showed  to  Seward,  to 
Stanton,  to  IMcClellan,  and  to  a  host  of  others. 
Lincoln  called  political  and  personal  oppo- 
nents to  office.  His  only  test  was  whether  they 
could  be  of  service  to  the  country.  Most  of 
his  Cabinet  and  even  his  generals  regarded  his 
election  as  an  accident  and  himself  as  a  coun- 
try politician  wholly  unfitted  to  be  President. 
McClellan,  one  of  Lincoln's  first  generals,  was 
a  Democrat  and  had  provided  the  special 
trains  on  which  Douglas  had  traveled  during 
his  debates  with  Lincoln.  When  appointed  a 
general  McClellan  disregarded  Lincoln's  orders 
and  treated  his  chief  in  a  way  that  but  few  men 
could  have  borne.  At  one  time  when  Lincoln 
called  at  his  house  to  see  him  on  a  critical  mat- 
ter, McClellan  sent  down  word  that  he  could 
not  be  disturbed  and  calmly  went  to  bed,  leav- 
mg  the  President  of  the  United  States  to  take 
himseK  home.  Lincoln  bore  with  him,  however, 
until  the  very  last,  hoping  against  hope  that  he 
would  finally  learn  to  lead  the  armies  of  the 
Union  to  a  victory.  To  one  vfho  urged  him  to 
discipline  the  general  for  his  insolence,  Lincoln 


THE  STATESMAN  61 

merely  said:  "I  will  stand  outside  and  hold 
McClellan's  horse  for  him  if  he  will  only  bring 
us  success." 

Seward  was  called  to  become  Secretary  of 
State.  He  was  the  recognized  leader  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
and  in  the  Cabinet  expected  to  be  the  power  be- 
hind the  throne.  Compassionating  what  he 
supposed  to  be  Lincoln's  weakness,  Seward 
actually  wrote  him  a  letter,  proposing  to  take 
charge  of  the  government  and  become  acting- 
President.  Lincoln  refused  this  extraordinary 
suggestion,  but  with  so  much  tact  and  kindness 
that  he  made  Seward  one  of  his  warmest  sup- 
porters and  was  able  to  avail  himself  of  his 
great  talents  for  the  country's  good.  It  was  only 
a  few  weeks  after  this  letter  that  the  Secretary 
of  State  wrote  to  Mrs.  Seward:  "The  President 
is  the  best  of  us  all." 

Throughout  his  presidency  Lincoln  refused 
to  treasure  up  any  personal  injury  and  utilized 
even  his  enemies  to  help  him  save  the  country. 
He  kept  Chase  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
even  when  he  knew  that  he  was  plotting  to 
secure  the  nomination  for  the  presidency. 

Lincoln  had  first  met  Edwin  M.  Stanton 
when  he  had  been  retained  with  the  latter  in 
one  of  the  most  important  cases  of  his  legal 
career.    "Where  did  that  long-armed  creature 


62        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

come  from,  and  what  does  he  expect  to  do  in 
this  case?"  demanded  Stanton  after  they  had 
met  in  Cincinnati,  speaking  so  loudly  as  to  be 
heard  by  Lincoln  through  an  open  door  in  the 
hotel.  As  a  result  of  his  contemptuous  treat- 
ment of  Lincoln,  the  latter  was  sidetracked 
and  Stanton  made  the  argument.  After  Lin- 
coln had  been  elected  President,  Stanton,  who 
had  served  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  wrote  and 
spoke  of  him  with  the  utmost  bitterness  and 
disdain,  referring  to  him  in  his  letters  as  a 
"goriDa."  Yet  it  was  Stanton  whom  Lincoln 
called  to  be  Secretary  of  War.  Even  after  his 
appointment  Stanton  treated  the  President 
with  marked  disrespect.  Once  when  Lincoln 
released  some  prisoners  without  regard  to 
Stanton's  wishes,  the  latter  said  that  the  only 
thing  left  to  do  was  "to  get  rid  of  that  baboon 
in  the  White  House." 

"I  wouldn't  endure  that  insult,"  said  an 
indignant  friend  who  reported  the  matter  to 
the  President.  "Insult?  That  is  no  insult," 
returned  Lincoln.  "All  he  said  was  that  I  was 
a  baboon,  and  that  is  only  a  matter  of  opinion, 
sir."  Then  he  added  after  a  pause,  "The  thing 
that  concerns  me  most  is  that  I  find  that  Stan- 
ton is  usually  right."  Yet  Stanton  hved  to  say 
at  Lincoln's  bier:  "There  lies  the  greatest 
leader  of  men  the  world  has  ever  seen." 


THE  STATESMAN  63 

In  the  presidency,  as  outside,  Lincoln  was 
great  enough  to  do  the  right  thing  even  when 
the  whole  country  was  against  him.  When  the 
commander  of  a  Union  vessel  took  the  Con- 
federate commissioners.  Mason  and  SlideU,  by 
force  from  a  British  steamer,  the  North  made  a 
hero  of  the  officer.  Lincoln  realized  instantly 
that  this  act  was  of  the  same  class  as  those 
committed  by  Great  Britain  which  brought  on 
the  War  of  1812.  In  spite  of  the  clamor  of  the 
whole  country  he  restored  the  Confederate 
commissioners  to  Great  Britain  and  disavowed 
their  capture. 

He  who  looks  ever  into  the  far  future  and 
seeks  constantly  to  know  the  eternal  purposes 
of  life  wins  to  a  clearer  vision  than  ordinary 
men.  It  was  so  with  Abraham  Lincoln.  Listen 
to  some  of  the  messages  that  he  has  left  for  us 
of  another  generation: 

No  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  another  person 
without  that  other's  consent. 

This  is  a  world  of  compensation.  He  who  would 
be  no  slave  must  be  content  to  have  no  slave.  Those 
who  deny  freedom  to  others  deserve  it  not  themselves, 
and  under  a  just  God  cannot  long  retain  it; 

It  is  best  for  all  to  leave  each  man  free  to  acquire 
property  as  fast  as  he  can.  I  don't  beheve  in  a  law  to 
prevent  a  man  from  getting  rich.  It  would  do  more 
harm  than  good.  I  want  every  man  to  have  a  chance 
to  better  his  condition. 


64        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

Repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise;  repeal  all  the 
compromises;  repeal  the  Declaration  of  Independence; 
repeal  all  past  history — you  still  cannot  repeal  human 
nature. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  CHRISTIAN 

Like  Moses,  Luther,  and  Washington,  Lin- 
coln became  a  great  leader  of  men  only  when 
he  surrendered  himself  to  God.  His  mother, 
Nancy  Hanks,  was  a  Christian  woman.  Of  her 
he  said:  "I  remember  her  prayers  and  they 
have  always  followed  me.  They  have  clung 
to  me  all  my  life." 

As  a  boy  he  read  his  Bible  and  attended 
church  when  he  could.  In  those  days  he 
learned  the  hymns  which  were  his  favorites 
throughout  life,  "Am  I  a  Soldier  of  the  Cross?" 
and  "There  Is  a  Fountain  Filled  with  Blood." 
During  his  early  manhood  he  drifted  into  a 
temporary  indifference  toward  rehgious  mat- 
ters. Yet  even  through  this  time  he  read  and 
reread  his  Bible,  and  his  later  hfe  showed  what 
it  did  for  him. 

Take  all  of  this  book  upon  reason  that  you  can  and 
the  balance  on  faith  and  you  will  live  and  die  a  happier 
man, 

Lincoln  wi'ote  to  a  skeptical  friend. 

Another  great  war  president  of  our  own 
time  has  borne  testimony  about  this  Book  oi 
books,  which  Lincoln  would  have  echoed  in  the 
last  vears  of  his  life: 

65 


66        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

The  Bible  is  the  Word  of  life.  I  beg  that  you  will 
read  it  and  find  this  out  for  yourselves.  Read,  not 
little  snatches  here  and  there,  but  long  passages  that 
will  really  be  the  road  to  the  heart  of  it.  You  will  not 
only  find  it  full  of  real  men  and  women,  but  also  of 
the  things  you  have  wondered  about  and  been  troubled 
about  all  your  life,  as  men  have  been  always;  and  the 
more  you  read  the  more  it  will  become  plain  to  you 
what  things  are  worth  while  and  what  are  not;  what 
things  make  men  happy — loyalty,  right  dealings,  speak- 
ing the  truth,  readiness  to  give  everything  for  what  they 
thmk  their  duty,  and,  most  of  all,  the  wish  that  they 
may  have  the  approval  of  the  Christ,  who  gave  every- 
thing for  them;  and  the  things  that  are  guaranteed  to 
make  men  unhappy — selfishness,  cowardice,  greed, 
and  everything  that  is  low  and  mean.  When  you  have 
read  the  Bible  you  will  know  that  it  is  the  Word  of 
God,  because  you  will  have  found  it  the  key  to  your  own 
heart,  your  own  happiness,  and  your  own  duty. 

WooDROw  Wilson. 

Lincoln's  period  of  indifTerence  was  followed 
by  an  awakening  to  higher  things.  In  1842  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Speed  a  letter  in  which  he 
said: 

I  beheve  God  made  me  one  of  the  instruments  of 

bringing  Fanny  and  you  together,  which  union  I  have 

no  doubt  he  had  foreordained.     Whatever  he  designs 

he  will  do  for  me  yet.    "Stand  still  and  see  the  salvation 

'of  the  Lord"  is  my  text  just  now. 

More  and  more  Lincoln's  speeches  became 
tinged  with  religious  thought.  In  1856  in  the 
"Lost  Speech"  he  said: 

The  stars  in  their  courses,  aye,  an  invisible  power, 
greater  than  the  puny  efforts  of  men,  will  fight  for  us. 
.  .  .  Our  moderation  and  forbearance  will  stand  us  in 
good  stead  when,  if  ever,  we  must  make  an  appeal  to 
battle  and  to  the  God  of  hosts. 


Lincoln  and  His  Son  "  Tad." 
From  photograph  taken  while  Lincoln  was  President. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  67 

At  last,  preferred  to  all  the  great  leaders  of 

his  party,  he  was  made  the  President  of  his 

country.     The  sheer  wonder  of  it  made  him 

know  that  he  had  been  chosen  of  God  for  a 

great  pmpose. 

I  cannot  but  know  what  you  all  know  that  without 
a  name,  perhaps  without  a  reason  why  I  should  have  a 
name,  there  has  fallen  upon  me  a  task  such  as  did  not 
rest  even  upon  the  father  of  his  country;  and  so  feeUng 
I  cannot  but  turn  and  look  for  that  support  without 
which  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  perform  that  great 
task.  I  turn,  then,  and  look  to  the  great  American 
people  and  to  that  God  who  has  never  forsaken  them. 

His  farewell  to  his  friends  at  Springfield  as  he 
left  to  go  to  Washington  shows  as  does  nothing 
else  the  new  spirit  of  his  life.  As  with  the 
friends  of  the  Apostle  Paul  at  Miletus,  many 
of  them  "wept  sore,  . .  .  sorrowing  most  of  all 
for  the  words  which  he  spake,  that  they  should 
see  his  face  no  more."   To  them  he  said : 

My  Friends:  No  one  not  in  my  situation  can  appre- 
ciate my  feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To  this 
place,  and  the  kindness  of  these  people,  I  owe  every- 
thing. Here  I  have  lived  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old  man.  Here  my 
children  have  been  born,  and  one  is  buried.  I  now 
leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether  I  may  ever  return, 
with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that  which  rested 
upon  Washington.  Without  the  assistance  of  that 
Divine  Being  who  ever  attended  him  I  cannot  succeed. 
With  that  assistemce  I  caimot  fail.  Trusting  in  him, 
who  can  go  with  me  and  remain  with  you,  and  be  every- 
where for  good,  let  us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet 
be  well.  To  his  care  commending  you,  as  I  hope  in 
your  prayers  you  will  conmaend  me,  I  bid  you  an  afi'ec- 
tionate  farewell. 


68        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

From  that  day  a  new  life  begins  for  him — 
the  life  of  a  devoted  Christian.  "I  have  been 
driven  many  times  to  my  knees,"  he  later 
wrote,  "because  I  had  nowhere  else  to  go." 

Again  he  declared: 

I  would  be  the  veriest  blockhead  if  I  thought  I  could 
get  through  with  a  single  day's  business  without  relying 
upon  Him  who  doeth  all  things  well. 

This  spirit  shows  constantly  throughout  all 
his  duties.    To  a  Missouri  delegation  he  said: 

I  desire  to  so  conduct  the  affairs  of  this  administra- 
tion that  if  at  the  very  end,  when  I  come  to  lay  down  the 
reins  of  power,  I  have  lost  every  friend  on  earth,  I  shall 
have  at  least  one  friend  left — my  conscience. 

When  a  minister,  representing  a  visiting  del- 
egation, said  to  him  that  he  hoped  the  Lord 
was  on  theu'  side,  Mr.  Lincoln  replied: 

I  am  more  concerned  to  know  whether  we  are  on  the 
Lord's  side. 

Constantly  he  sought  for  the  sympathy,  and 
the  prayers,  and  the  help  of  all  Christian  peo- 
ple. A  minister  from  a  little  village  in  central 
New  York  State  called  to  tell  him  that  every 
Christian  father  and  mother  was  praying  for 
him  every  day.  The  tears  filled  Lincoln's  eyes 
as  he  thanked  his  visitor  and  said: 

But  for  these  prayers  I  should  have  faltered  and 
perhaps  failed  long  ago.  Tell  every  father  and  mother 
you  know  to  keep  on  praying  and  I  will  keep  on  fighting. 


THE   CHRISTIAN  69 

After  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  had 
been  signed  he  said  to  some  men  who  had  called 
to  congratulate  him  on  the  success  of  the  Union 
arms: 

On  many  a  defeated  field  there  was  a  voice  louder 
than  the  thundering  of  cannon.  It  was  the  voice  of 
God  crying,  "Let  my  people  go."  We  were  all  very 
slow  in  reaUzing  that  it  was  God's  voice,  but  after 
many  humiliating  defeats  the  nation  came  to  believe 
it  as  a  great  and  solemn  command.  Great  multitudes 
begged  and  prayed  that  I  might  answer  God's  voice 
by  signing  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  I  did 
it,  believing  that  we  should  never  be  successful  in  the 
great  struggle  unless  we  obeyed  the  Lord's  command. 
Since  that  the  God  of  battles  has  been  on  our  side. 

Just  before  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  all  of 
the  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  in  a  state  of 
terrible  anxiety.  General  Lee  with  a  power- 
ful army  had  swept  up  into  Pennsylvania.  On 
the  eve  of  the  battle  General  Meade,  almost 
an  untried  general,  had  been  placed  in  com- 
mand, A  defeat  meant  the  loss  of  the  Capital 
and  perhaps  the  occupation  of  Philadelphia 
and  even  New  York.  Everywhere  was  panic. 
Only  Lincoln  remained  unmoved  and  unafraid. 
After  the  battle  he  told  General  Sicldes  the 
reason  of  his  confidence: 

In  the  pinch  of  your  campaign  up  there,  when  every- 
body seemed  panic-stricken  and  nobody  could  tell  what 
was  going  to  happen,  I  went  to  my  room  one  day  and 
locked  the  door  and  got  down  on  my  knees  before 
Almighty  God,  and  prayed  for  victory  at  Gettysburg. 
I  told  turn  that  this  was  his  war,  and  our  cause  his 


70        ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:   HIS  STORY 

cause,  but  that  we  could  not  stand  another  Fredericks- 
burg or  Chancellorsville.  Then  I  made  a  vow  to  Al- 
mighty God  that  if  he  would  stand  by  our  boys  at 
Gettysburg,  I  would  stand  by  him,  and  he  did  stand 
by  you  boys  and  I  will  stand  by  him.  And  after  that, 
I  don't  know  how  it  was  and  I  can't  explain  it,  but  soon 
a  sweet  comfort  swept  into  m.y  soul  that  God  Almighty 
had  taken  the  whole  business  into  his  own  hands,  and 
that  is  why  I  have  no  fears  about  you. 

To  Chittenden,  the  Register  of  the  Treasury, 
Lincohi  said: 

That  the  Almighty  does  make  use  of  human  agencies, 
and  directly  intervenes  in  human  affairs,  is  one  of  the 
jjlainest  statements  in  the  Bible.  I  have  had  so  many 
evidences  of  his  direction,  so  many  instances  when  I 
have  been  controlled  by  some  other  power  than  my 
own  will,  that  I  cannot  doubt  that  this  power  comes 
from  above.  I  frequently  see  my  way  clear  to  a  deci- 
sion when  I  am  conscious  that  I  have  not  sufficient  facts 
upon  which  to  found  it.  I  am  satisfied  that  when  the 
Almighty  wants  me  to  do  or  not  to  do  a  particular 
thing,  he  finds  a  way  of  letting  me  know  it. 

It  was  this  deep  and  achieved  faith  in  God 
that  made  John  Hay,  who  had  been  one  of  his 
private  secretaries,  say  of  him: 

Abraham  Lincoln,  one  of  the  mightiest  masters  of 
statecraft  that  history  has  known,  was  also  one  of  the 
most  devoted  and  faithful  servants  of  Almighty  God 
who  have  ever  sat  in  the  high  places  of  the  world. 

Only  a  Christian  could  have  written  the 
letter  which  he  sent  to  a  Mrs.  Bixby,  who  had 
lost  five  sons  in  the  service.  It  is  copied  in 
letters  of  gold  on  the  walls  of  a  great  English 
university: 


THE  CHRISTIAN  71 

Dear  Madam: 

I  have  been  shown  in  the  flies  of  the  War  Department 
a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-General  of  Massachusetts 
that  you  are  the  mother  of  five  sons  who  have  died 
gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and 
fruitless  must  be  any  words  of  mine  which  should  at- 
tempt to  beguile  you  from  the  grief  of  a  loss  so  over- 
whelming. But  I  cannot  refrain  from  tendering  to  you 
the  consolation  that  may  be  found  in  the  thanks  of  the 
Republic  they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that  our  Heavenly 
Father  may  assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement, 
and  leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the  loved 
and  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to 
have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 
Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 
Abraham  Lincoln. 


Time  went  on.  The  war  was  drawing  to  its 
close.  On  the  day  of  the  receipt  of  the  news  of 
Lee's  surrender  the  President  held  a  meeting 
of  the  Cabinet.  Neither  Lincoln  nor  any  mem- 
ber was  able  for  a  time  to  speak.  Finally,  at 
the  suggestion  of  the  President,  all  dropped  on 
their  knees  and  thanked  God  in  silence  and  in 
tears  for  the  victory  that  he  had  granted  to  the 
Union.  It  is  doubtful  whether  there  is  any 
other  recorded  instance  where  the  meeting  of 
the  Cabinet  of  a  great  country  ended  in 
prayer. 

The  victories  of  the  Union  arms  re-elected 
Lincoln  as  President.  In  his  Second  Inaugural 
Address  he  reached  heights  not  achieved  before, 
when  looking  back  over  four  years  of  war, 
hatred,  and  calumny  he  was  yet  able  to  say: 


72        ABRAHAM   LINCOLN:  HIS  STORY 

The  Almighty  has  his  own  purposes.  If  we  shaU 
suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  those  offenses 
which  in  the  pro\'idence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but 
which,  having  continued  through  his  appointed  time, 
he  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  he  gives  to  both  North 
and  South  this  terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by 
whom  the  offense  came,  shall  we  discern  therein  any 
departure  from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  be- 
lievers in  a  Uving  God  always  ascribe  to  him?  Fondly 
do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God 
wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  up  by 
the  bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unre- 
qmted  toil  shall  be  simk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood 
drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn 
by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago, 
so  still  it  must  be  said:  "The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are 
true  and  righteous  altogether." 

With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with 
firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right, 
let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  now  in,  to  bind 
up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have 
borne  the  battle  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphan,  to 
do  aU  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting 
peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations. 

In  his  last  public  speech  of  April  11,  1865, 
Lincoln  again  testified  to  his  faith  and  trust  in 
God.    He  said  in  part: 

We  meet  this  evening,  not  in  sorrow,  but  in  gladness 
of  heart.  The  evacuation  of  Richmond  and  Petersburg, 
and  the  surrender  of  the  principal  insurgent  army,  give 
the  hope  of  a  just  and  speedy  peace,  the  joyous  expres- 
sion of  which  cannot  be  restrained.  In  all  this  joy, 
however.  He  from  whom  all  blessings  flow  must  not 
be  forgotten. 

Three  nights  later  in  the  state  box  at  Ford's 
Theatre  he  was  talking  to  Mrs.  Lincoln  about 


THE   CHRISTIAN  73 

a  trip  to  the  Holy  Land.  Just  as  he  was  saying 
that  there  was  no  city  which  he  so  much  wished 
to  see  as  Jerusalem,  his  words  were  cut  short 
by  the  fatal  bullet.  On  the  morning  of  April 
15,  1865,  he  who  had  wept  often  but  who  had 
never  flinched  nor  faltered,  went,  not  without 
abundant  entrance,  into  the  presence  of  his 
Lord.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  the  Secretary  of 
War  and  his  onetime  enemy,  broke  the  silence 
of  the  death-chamber  and  said : 

Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages. 


.♦' 


MP*-'' 


